


Once Upon a December

by DisnerdingAvenger



Category: Anastasia (1997), Marvel (Movies), The Avengers (2012)
Genre: Angst, Assassination, Drama, F/M, Family, Fear, Friendship/Love, Love, Memory Loss, Nightmares, Romance, Self-Discovery
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-06-10
Updated: 2013-06-09
Packaged: 2017-12-14 12:24:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,686
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/836828
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DisnerdingAvenger/pseuds/DisnerdingAvenger
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Natasha Romanov had a more tragic past that anyone knew; including herself. Suffering from memory loss, she doesn't remember a single day of her childhood before she was eight years old, but she's done a good job of hiding it all these years. It's not until one night in Italy, after the purely insane events in New York, that the truth comes out... and a journey toward self-discovery finally begins.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Once Upon a December

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by the 1997 20th Century Fox animated film "Anastasia". I couldn't help noticing the similarities between the main character, Anastasia, and Natasha, right down to their last name. Seeing as though we've never really gotten an explanation about why Natasha became the way she was, I thought this might be a fun twist to consider. Enjoy!

Natasha Romanov had plenty of secrets up her sleeve, but her past had to be the darkest, and most ironic, of them all. Clint, who knew her, better than anyone she'd ever known, figured she kept it to herself because it was bad. He'd never have guessed it was because she couldn't remember even the tiniest morsel of it.

No; Natasha's life had been a rather miserable one. It was partially why she ended up taking such a dangerous and unforgiving path into the assassination business. Something terrible had happened when she was eight, an accident maybe, and she couldn't remember anything before the day she found herself wandering aimlessly through Russian streets, ending up in a rather awful orphanage for the majority of her youth.

She was treated appallingly there by the head mistress; bullied about her pile of red curls, and how they were unnatural and unattractive on a young woman. She was criticized for everything that made her who she was, and she took it to heart, building walls around herself until she was a hard young Russian woman who didn't let anything hurt her, or let anyone in so they could do so. When someone offered her 5000 rubles to kill the woman who had made her life a living hell, she gladly accepted, killing the head mistress of Devushka Orphanage by snapping her neck with her own two hands, merely at the age of seventeen.

Using the reward money, Natasha escaped from Russia, easily becoming one of the most well-known private assassins in the business. She'd killed a gaping number of over five-hundred people before SHIELD caught onto her, and then she started running, changing her name to Natalie Rushman and hiding right under their noses in America. It worked, too, until they assigned agent Barton to her.

She had to admit he was nearly as good at this as she was; hunting, trapping, luring, evading; almost too good. She'd been certain he'd never truly catch her though, and her arrogance led to a crucial slip-up. She let her guard down for one night, just  _one night_ , in Las Vegas, and the next thing she knew there was an arrow tip pressed to her back.

Natasha had expected to be skewered within seconds, and braced herself for the pain she knew was coming. When it didn't come right away, she'd slowly turned to face her attacker, arching an eyebrow at him.

"Ty ne khochesh' menya ubit'?"

Shaking his head, Clint poised the arrow directly over her heart. He could release the string at any second, and she'd be dead instantaneously. "Sorry, sweetheart," he said smoothly with a shake of his head, "I don't speak Russian."

Keeping her hands up at her sides, she narrowed her blue eyes, not breaking eye-contact with him. "It means, 'Aren't you going to kill me?'."

Frowning, Clint looked deep into those shielded, unfathomable eyes as she spoke. One of the things Fury trusted Clint Barton on was his flawless sense of judgement. Just by looking into a person's eyes, he could learn enough about them to make the right decision.

Killing this girl wasn't the right decision. Beneath all that ice and malice, he could see something else. Something faint and buried, but glimmering just bright enough to be noticeable. He could see that frightened, confused little Russian girl, wandering aimlessly through the streets, begging for help and no one would listen to her. He could see how scared she really was, how lonely she'd been… He could see that she was lost. She was  _still_  lost.

How could he kill something that was just misguided? He'd likely live to regret it; a girl who killed over five-hundred people was certainly no innocent. But even the most tarnished of metals can be polished to shine like gold.

"No." Shaking his head, Clint slowly lowered the bow, keeping it drawn just in case it was necessary to shoot after all.

"No?" Furrowing her brow, Natasha began to survey any possible ways to escape. "What do you mean, 'no'? Isn't that what you were sent here to do?"

"I'm making a different call."

She'd ended up in handcuffs, ones that were programmed to shock her with electricity if she tried to remove them, but she didn't end up dead. On the contrary; the young assassin from Russia ended up as one of SHIELD's most useful assets. There wasn't a day that goes by that Natasha isn't grateful for what Clint did.

But a brighter future can't change a dark past. For years, she really did remember nothing of her childhood before she ended up in that damn orphanage. It wasn't until after the impossible events in New York that she started to remember things. Not as memories, though; as horrible, terrifying nightmares. She wasn't certain as to what triggered them; a bump on the head, perhaps; but they were positively gruesome.

Whispers; that's how they always started; whispers in a gritty, unpleasant voice of a curse. Then there would be an explosion of green light, and screams would fill her head, bloodcurdling and loud, accompanied with dozens of unfamiliar agonized faces, and one feminine cry of, "Run, Tasha! Run and don't look back!"

After that, Natasha would find herself running through dimly lit cobblestone streets, with loud footsteps echoing behind her. She would suddenly feel something tugging her backward, and a scream that was a bit too high would escape her lips, followed by the worst pain she'd ever felt stabbing into her and forcing her to wake with a strangled gasp.

Natasha Romanov didn't have nightmares. If she did, she kept them quiet and didn't mention them. But this time, she woke in an icy sweat with tears of pain falling from her eyes as she clutched her head, and she released a scream when a strong pair of hands fell on her shoulders.

"Tasha! Relax! It's only me…"

Gasping for breath, Natasha looked around the small hotel room, slowly remembering where she was. Florence, Italy; she and Clint were undercover as a couple who were interested in buying a series of diamonds stolen from the Palazzo Vecchio in a heist a few weeks ago. It was a bit of a downgrade from dealing with aliens and gods, but still work.

Currently, Clint was seated on the edge of her twin-sized bed, looking incredibly worried. He'd never heard Natasha scream like she just had; something had to be seriously wrong.

"What's going on?"

Shaking his head, he grabbed a few tissues from the box between their two beds and went about dabbing her face clean of the sweat lingering there, and she pushed his hand away, not wanting to be treated like an incapable child.

"I… had a nightmare. I'm fine."

"You're far from fine," he objected with a shake of his head. "Don't lie to me, Romanov; you know I can see right through you."

"Fine," she muttered, heaving a sigh. "It was a  _weird_  nightmare. Not about people I've killed or the stuff that happened in New York; there were… whispers and screams. Faces and a woman telling me to run…"

Shaking his head, Clint absently reached out to tuck a fiery red damp curl behind her ear. "It was just a dream, Tasha," he said softly with a sigh, and she pulled her legs up to her chest, nodding.

"I know that. I'm not stupid. It just felt…  _off._  Like something about it meant something…"

"What could it mean?" he asked, furrowing his brow and shaking his head again, "Whispers and screams, and a woman telling you to run? That's kind of vague."

"Never mind," she mumbled, shifting to lie down again, rolling over so her back was to him. He could tell she was shutting him out, and he resisted the urge to groan. He hated it when she got this way…

"There's more to this than you're telling me," he stated, moving to lie with her, running a hand down her arm soothingly. He knew she didn't like to be comforted; it wasn't something she was used to. But sometimes she needed it more than she let on…

"No, there really isn't," she muttered in response, shivering a bit when she felt his fingertips graze the side of her neck as he brushed her curls aside.

"Tell me, Nat…" It was more of a request than a command, because he knew perfectly well she wouldn't obey an order from him. She never had.

"There  _isn't_  anything to tell," she repeated, but her tone was different. "I mean it. This dream… it felt like a memory; a memory from a long time ago."

"How long ago?" he asked, and she rolled over to face him, her body tangled in the mess of sheets as their heads lay on the same pillow.

"I don't know." Shaking her head, she searched his eyes, clearly conflicted. Was she really ready to indulge him in this information…? Taking a deep breath, she continued. "I don't have any memory of my life before I was eight years old. I don't know why, or what happened that caused it. But this dream… it felt like I was that little girl again. I felt small and defenseless; terrified. I felt like I knew the agonized faces surrounding me. I don't know how, Barton… But I think I'm starting to remember."

Staring at her with disbelief, Clint found himself at a loss for words. He'd known Natasha's past was one of darkness and despair, but this? He'd never expected  _this._

"The faces… Who do you think they were?"

Frowning with concentration, Natasha rolled onto her back and pushed a hand through her hair, squeezing her eyes shut and trying desperately to remember, but there was nothing. As fast as the dream had come, all clarity of it was gone. No names, no specifics… just fear…

"I have no idea."

Sitting up, Natasha slipped out of bed, crossing the room in the silk nightgown and grabbing her suitcase, loading her gun before going about getting dressed.

"But I need to find out."


End file.
